Valian
One of the rarer sentient lifeforms in the galaxy are the Valian species, an asexually-reproducing race that numbers in the scant thousands. While very few in number, they remain one of the most widely-spread races and certainly one of the most-discussed among xenopological circles. They are most well-known for the abandoned, automated ships that drift near the core worlds of the galaxy, hostile towards almost all technological creations including other valian technology and known for their advanced repair systems. Alliance conservation authorities are debating whether or not to declare the species to be 'critically endangered', which would make harming any of them a serious crime rather than minor assault. Very rarely are sentient races ever declared endangered, but as the remaining members of the race die out slowly but surely and their few remaining pockets of technology are burned away by time and hostile activity, it becomes very clear that the valian race is headed only towards its inevitable end. Biology A race that most resembles the lowly amoeba, Valians are best described as a 'completely black, vaguely humanoid bag of vital goop'. Their glassy-smooth outer skin holds a viscous substance, they are silicon-based, and need no breathable atmosphere to survive. At a distance they appear entirely humanoid, with two legs and two arms, even a head with two glowing white eyes... but on approaching a Valian the slow 'sloshing' of their liquid bodies is audible when they move. If the skin is broken, their liquid bodies runs out like a terribly-bleeding wound, and if it does not congeal in time they can literally have their life drain from them, and perish. They are nearly useless in close combat without extensive armoring, suggesting that their species evolved without predators or much in the way of physical hazards. Valians have no mouths or ears or noses, but can hear through their skin, smell things by contact, and are able to speak through either vibration of their skin to reproduce vocal sounds (assuming they even know language) or through use of their weak telepathic ability; Valians may speak to each other when touching, but normally communicate emotions and images at range to each other. Hearing a Valian communicating with sound is often described as similar to listening to someone speak through a mediocre-quality speaker. Valians feed on solar energy directly, motile with electrical impulses generated from it like a biological solar panel, and as such are awake and active whenever the sun or suns directly shine on them. At night or without the gleam of artificial light to power them, they become inert and only semi-aware by necessity. Space-travel is possible for them so long as the craft they are within is lit at all times; they would even be capable of unsuited EVA, if not for the fact that they require pressure. Valians reproduce asexually, but the actual process has yet to be observed... it is unknown precisely how. It has been suggested that they split as a cell does, as only one offspring, identical to the parent, is ever produced. This is further strengthened by the fact that after reproduction a Valian will seem to lose most knowledge that they possessed beyond survival skills and very deeply-rooted knowledge, such as the identity of extremely close friends or important tasks; it is because of this that what caused the decline of the species to remain a mystery. Valians live approximately 500 years, and tend to reproduce every fifty years. Due to the nature of Valian reproduction, it is also possible that a single parent splits into two separate offspring, but typically one of them is considered the parent. History Valians were once one of the most prolific races in history, an empire spanning such a large territory that the remains of their sweeping, smooth-walled infrastructure still stands strong on a few dozen worlds many light years apart. But for reasons still unknown, all of these buildings are empty walls. Historians studying the species have concluded that Valians were bound together as a society by a universal need to propagate and expand their borders, so much so that expansion itself was seen as a religious call. The development of future generations was paramount to the current generation. Valian kind reached the industrial era at an incredibly slow rate... at which point their society boomed. With the ability to more easily record and reproduce information the knowledge once lost with every birth was now forever stored for use by each unit of Valian society (city-sized groups known as Nodes). At some point in time, during the Valian race's peak of space-exploration and expansion, a 'discovery' was made that brought expansion to a shuddering halt. Recordings remain of a ripple of terror and fascination, and with it the union that had existed in the form of the Valian collective ceased to exist. The race collapsed into a brutal civil war -the only civil war in their entire history - and within a few short years they had nearly eradicated themselves and all of their infrastructure, leaving the survivors to decay in number and forget much of what came before. Now only a few surviving colonies remain, ignorant of their past. Valian records now are near impossible to find, even those of family units, and the primal drive for growth that bound the species as one is now gone. Those remaining have sunk into a depressive state, seemingly unwilling to continue the species, unwilling to make notes on their lives, and unwilling to reproduce. None know of what caused the terrible fall of their species. Any hint at what had occurred was strategically and totally destroyed, entire databases of knowledge being wiped from history in a purge of technological secrets during the Valian civil war. Historians almost universally agree that whatever happened was intended to be forgotten and lost, and there remains a stirring ethical debate on whether such knowledge should remain lost. Even today their remaining technology seeks to protect the records that they could not purge. Automated Valian ships, ancient hulks that still function, guard their few remaining relic sites with devastating potency; a single Old-Age Valian destroyer is able to take on a modern fleet, easily wiping out attackers and healing its own hull with remarkable regenerative ability. Most remarkably, their homeworld itself is now a broken group of chunks of rock in the Kataan system. As of the time this record was made only a dozen Valians live in the area of Alliance space, primarily working in the field of agriculture; their ability to remain tireless so long as the sun shines is valuable to those that grow crops, and many Valians have shown a keen interest in the safety and proliferation of growing things. Category:Species Category:Poly- and metamorphic sentient species Category:Mineral-based sentient species